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| A Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah |
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Sunday, November 22, 2009
A banker by profession, Salim Ansar has a passion for history and historic books. His personal library already boasts a treasure trove of over 7,000 rare and unique books.
Every week, we shall take a leaf from one such book and treat you to a little taste of history.
BOOK NAME: A Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah
AUTHOR: Richard Burton
PUBLISHER: A & G A Spottiswoode - London
DATE OF PUBLICATION: 1864
The following excerpt has been taken from Page: 58 - 64
“In the autumn of 1852, through the medium of General Monteith, I offered my services to the Royal geographical Society of London, for the purpose of removing that opprobrium to modern adventure, the huge white blot which in our maps still notes the eastern and the central regions of Arabia. Sir Roderick Murchison, Colonel P. Yorke and Dr. Shaw, a deputation from that distinguished body, with their usual zeal for discovery and readiness to encourage the discoverer, honoured me by warmly supporting, in a personal interview with the chairman of the Honourable the Court of Directors to the East India Company, my application for three years’ leave of absence on special duty from India to Muscat.
“The principal object with which I started was this: To cross the unknown Arabian Peninsula, in a direct line from either El Medinah to Muscat, or diagonally from Meccah to Makallah on the Indian Ocean.”
EXCERPT
“A visit to the Masjid El Nabawi, and the holy spots within it, is technically called ‘Ziyarat’ or Visitation. An essential difference is made between this rite and Hajj pilgrimage. The latter is obligatory by Koranic [Qur’aanic] order upon every Moslem once in his life: the former is only a meritorious action. ‘Tawaf’ or circum-ambulation of the House of Allah at Meccah, must never be performed at the Prophet’s [PBUH] tomb. This should not be visited in the ‘ihram’ or pilgrim dress; men should not kiss it, touch it with the hand, or press the bosom against it, as at the Kaabah; or rub the face with dust collected near the sepulchre; and those who prostrate themselves before it, like certain ignorant Indians, are held to be guilty of deadly sin. On the other hand to spit upon any part of the mosque, or to treat it with contempt, is held to be the act of an infidel.
“Thus learning and the religions have settled, one would have thought, accurately enough the spiritual rank and dignity of the Masjid El Nabawi. But mankind, especially in the East, must always be in extremes. The orthodox school of El Malik holds El Medinah, on account of the sanctity of, and the religious benefits to be derived from Mohammed’s tomb, more honourable than Meccah. The Wahhabis, on the other hand, rejecting the intercession of the Prophet on the day of judgment; considering the grave of a mere mortal unworthy of notice; and highly disgusted by the idolatrous respect paid to it by certain foolish Moslems, plundered the sacred building with sacrilegious violence, and forbade visitors from distant countries to enter El Medinah. The general consents of El Islam admits the superiority of the Bait Allah (‘House of God’) at Meccah to the whole world, and declares El Medinah to be more venerable than every part of Meccah, and consequently all the earth, except only the Bait Allah.
“Passing through muddy streets — they had been freshly watered before evening time — I came suddenly upon the mosque. Like that at Meccah the approach is choked up by ignoble buildings, some actually touching the holy ‘enceinte’ others separated by a lane compared with which the road round St. Paul’s is a Vatican square. There is no outer front, no general aspect of the Prophet’s mosque; consequently, as a building, it has neither beauty nor dignity. And entering the Bab el Rahmah — the Gate of Pity — by a diminutive flight of steps, I was astonished at the mean and tawdry appearance of a place so universally venerated in the Moslem world. It is not, like the Meccan mosque, grand and simple — the expression of a single sublime idea: the longer I looked at it, the more it suggested the resemblance of a museum of second-rate art, a curiosity-shop, full of ornaments that are not accessories, and decorated with pauper splendour.
“The Masjid El Nabawi is a parallelogram about 420 feet in length by 340 broad, the direction of the long walls being nearly north and south. As usual in El Islam, it is a hypaethral building with a spacious central area, called El Sahn, El Hosh, El Haswah, or El Ramlah, surrounded by a peristyle with numerous rows of pillars like the colonnades of an Italian monastery. Their arcades or porticoes are flat-ceilinged, domed above with the small ‘Media Naranja’ or half-orange cupola of Spain, and divided into four parts by narrow passages, three or four steps below the level of the pavement. Along the whole inner length of the northern short wall runs the Mejidi Riwak, so called from the reigning sultan. The western long wall is occupied by the Riwak of the Rahmah Gate; the eastern by that of the Bab El Nisa, the ‘woman’s entrance’. Embracing the inner length of the southern short wall, and deeper by nearly treble the amount of columns, than the other porticoes, is the main colonnade, called El Rauzah, the adytum containing all that is venerable in the building. These four Riwaks, arched externally, are supported internally by pillars of different shape and material, varying from fine porphyry to dirty plaster; the southern one, where the sepulcher of cenotaph stands, is paved with handsome slabs of white marble and marquetry work, here and there covered with coarse matting and above this by unclean carpets, well worn by faithful feet.
“But this is not the time for Tafarruj, or lionising. Shaykh Hamid warns me with a nudge, that other things are expected of a Zair. He leads me to the Bab El Salam, fighting his way through a troop of beggars, and inquires markedly if I am religiously pure. Then, placing our hands a little below and on the left of the waist, the palm of the right covering the back of the left, in the position of prayer, and beginning with the right feet, we pace slowly forwards down the line called the Muwajihat el Sharifah, or ‘the Holy Fronting’ which, divided off like an aisle, runs parallel with the southern wall of the mosque. On my right hand walked the Shaykh, who recited aloud the following prayer, which I repeated after him. It is literally rendered, as, indeed, are all the formulas, and the reader is requested to excuse the barbarous fidelity of the translation. “In the name of Allah and in the Faith of Allah’s Prophet! 0 Lord cause me to enter the entering of Truth, and cause me to issue forth the issuing of Truth, and permit me to draw near to thee, and make me a Sultan Victorious! Then followed blessings upon the Prophet, and afterwards: ‘0 Allah! open to me the doors of thy mercy, and grant me entrance into it, and protect me from the Stoned Devil!’
salimansar52@yahoo.com
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ISSN 1563-9479 
